


You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

by Poetry



Series: Fem!Doctor [7]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bittersweet, Female Doctor (Doctor Who), Multi, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something the TARDIS wants Rose to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the fem!Doctor 'verse. For the uninitiated, it's established OT3, and the Doctor was a woman her whole life until she regenerated into male!Ten. Beta'd by yamx.
> 
>  _You're gonna have to leave me now, I know  
>  But I'll see you in the sky above  
> In the tall grass, in the ones I love  
> You're gonna make me lonesome when you go_  
> -Bob Dylan

Some mornings, when Rose awakes to the warmth of two male forms bracketing her body, everything feels perfectly right. She kisses them both and leaps out of bed, ready for the next adventure.

Other mornings, she wakes up after troubled dreams, and fearful thoughts choke her mind like weeds. It occurs to her then that she and Jack won't be with the Doctor forever, and she worries how lonely he'll be without them.

Today is one of those mornings, and Rose finds herself drawn to the comfort of the library. She thinks of Elek Zhûr, and looks for some poetry about rain in the hope that it might soothe her. She walks to the poetry section and pulls out a book at random, a silent plea to the TARDIS to guide her.

In her hand isn't a poetry book at all, but a scrapbook. It's crammed to bursting; Rose sits down hurriedly and settles it in her lap before anything can fall out. The cover is  iridescent blue leather, engraved with a symbol like a knot or a figure eight.

She opens the cover, and the first thing she sees is a paper-thin sheet of plastic with a drawing on it - if it can be called a drawing. Even though she can feel that it's flat, some trick of the light makes it look 3-D. The lines are sketchy and unsure, as if from a young artist trying out a new technique. The drawing is of a girl, maybe ten or eleven years old. She has a tousled mane of red-gold hair and a smattering of freckles across her pointed, mischievous face. It's signed at the bottom by the artist with an elaborate circular character. Rose recognizes the writing; she's seen its type throughout the TARDIS, but this is the first time she's been able to understand it. The symbol is a name: _Koschei_.

Rose bites her lip. She feels like she must be invading the Doctor's privacy, but then again, the TARDIS clearly wants her to see it. Curiosity wins out, and she flips to the next leaf in the scrapbook. It's a black-and-white photograph of two women, one old, one young, standing in front of the TARDIS. The older woman looks like the matriarch of some venerable family. Her hair is pinned neatly behind her neck, her chin is angled stubbornly upward, and she holds a cane in front of her in both hands. Her skirt is neatly ironed, but it's sensible enough to walk freely in. The younger woman looks much like her elder, and might be her granddaughter. Her face is open and curious, her hair in short dark curls.

 _Who are they,_ Rose wonders, _and what are they doing in front of the TARDIS?_ She brushes her fingertips across the photo, and to her alarm, it suddenly comes to life. The young woman looks up at her companion and smiles. "See? Moving pictographs are great fun, Grandmother. Could we go back to Beta Centauri and take more?"

"Hmph," says the old lady. "Perhaps." Then the photo goes still again. That's when Rose begins to suspect.

She turns another page and finds a scrap of coarse tartan taped to a photograph of a short woman with shaggy dark hair that comes down almost to her eyes, dressed in a mismatched jacket and trousers. She's arm in arm with a young man in a kilt that matches the tartan cloth. Rose rubs the tartan between her fingers and feels the corner of her mouth turn up.

Next is a long letter from someone named Alistair. This is too private to read, she decides, and simply takes note of the neat, businesslike handwriting before turning the page.

Now this one is _interesting_. There's a ticket stub for the Louvre from the 1970s and a painting of a man and a woman holding hands, their shoulders just touching. The painting is small, but of extraordinary detail. She can make out every curl in the tall woman's wild hair. The gloss of the white paint makes her teeth shine forth like tiny stars from her grin. She wears a brown skirt that reaches to mid-calf, a white shirt, a long coat, a floppy hat, and the most absurd scarf Rose has ever seen. Her friend is younger and smaller, a slender man with long blond hair in a tail. And he's wearing -

"A schoolboy outfit?" comes Jack's voice from behind Rose's shoulder. "You should've told me you were into that, Rose. Look how tight his trousers are! And, ooh, who's his lady friend?"

Rose imagines Jack and the Doctor in public school outfits and bends over giggling. "I'm not - you can't - that woman's the Doctor, Jack!"

He takes a seat next to her to get a closer look, and lets out a low whistle. "I'm glad she grew out of _that_ fashion phase. Can you imagine her running with that scarf?"

"I wonder who that bloke is," Rose says, studying his face. He's looking up at the Doctor with an expression on his face that she knows well. The Doctor has just said something that makes him want to laugh or roll his eyes, and he hasn't decided which yet.

"Can I have a look?" Jack asks, serious now. She passes the scrapbook to him. He holds the painting very close to his face. "I'd put it at around 16th century Earth. Very nice brushwork." He turns painting over and examines the back. Written on the back are the words _For Roma and the Doctor_. "Left-handed," Jack notes. "Hmm."

"Roma," says Rose, and wonders. They linger on the painting for a moment longer, then move on. They find what looks like a preserved piece of celery, a postage-stamp size video of a red-headed man in a schoolboy outfit making a face ("The Doctor really goes for the schoolboys, doesn't she?" Jack comments), a square of truly hideous rainbow fabric, and a recipe for something called nitro-nine written in a careless scrawl.

The last section of the scrapbook sends shivers down Rose's spine. There are pages of what might once have been photographs or letters, but they've all been crumpled and torn so badly she can't make anything out. Some of the papers are charred at the edges. It looks like someone destroyed them on purpose so that no one would be able to read them. All that remains intact is a single lock of long brown hair, the ends burnt, that Rose somehow knows is the Doctor's. They reach the end of the book, their fingertips covered in ash.

"That's where we came in," Rose murmurs. "After… this." She rubs the ash between thumb and forefinger and watches it crumble and fall on her skirt.

"For some reason, I'd thought…" Jack swallows and clears his throat. "I thought he'd spent all nine hundred years alone. That you were the first person to get through."

"I'm glad," says Rose. "I'm glad he wasn't alone. Except for… you know. I was worried that after us, after we - that he'd - "

" Shhh," says Jack. He sets the book aside and gathers her in his arms. "It's okay. He's not alone. He _won't_ be alone. And I think - I think we help remind him why he shouldn't be."

Rose presses her face to Jack's shoulder. It's a comfort to her, somehow, this hope that the Doctor won't have to be alone again. She wonders who might come across this scrapbook one day, when she and Jack are gone, and what they might see.

"Do we have a picture of us with - y'know - our first Doctor?" Rose asks.

Jack stills and seems to consider for a moment, then reaches into the pocket of his jeans. "Remember the photo booth we went into at the spaceport?"

"The one with the cheesy rocket ship backdrop?"

"Yeah. I slipped the photos in my pocket when the Doctor wasn't looking. I knew she'd scowl if she knew, so I just… kept it for myself." He produces a strip of little holographic photos, crumpled and tattered from sitting in Jack's pocket but still easily seen. All of them have a backdrop of a rocket taking off against a starry sky. Jack and Rose are at their silliest - in one, Jack is pretending to be riding the rocket, in another Rose cowers as if the rocket were aimed toward her head. The Doctor alternates between folding her arms across her chest and rolling her eyes. For the last photo, they managed to drag her to the middle, and each of them kissed a cheek as the flash went off. She looks less tense in this last, not like a lioness coiled to spring but a statue being kissed by pilgrims.

Rose digs between the cushions of the sofa for a pen, turns the photo strip over, and writes:

 _Whoever you are, and whatever face your Doctor may wear, remember:  
She needs you.  
He needs you.  
But he doesn't always realize it.  
Take good care of him for us._

 _Love,  
Rose Tyler_

She passes the photo strip to Jack. He signs his name below hers and opens the book to the inside of the back cover, where there's a pocket for loose items. He brushes the ash away, and leaves the photo strip for all the friends and lovers to come.


End file.
